MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's statement about the advance supply of weapons to Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded to Washington's admission of secretly arming Kiev before the start of the Russian special operation, stressing that this was the reason for starting the operation with the aim of disarming Kiev and ensuring Russia's security.
Zakharova reminded Blinken of the goals of the SVO after words about pumping Kyiv with weapons
In an interview with the NYT, the head of the State Department admitted that the American authorities began arming the Kiev regime long before the start of the Russian special operation. According to him, this began in September 2021 and then repeated again in December of the same year. Ukraine was given Stinger MANPADS and Javelin ATGMs so that, as Blinken claims, it "had everything it needs to defend itself."
"Russia has been talking about this for many years. About the pumping of weapons into Ukraine by the United States and Britain, and about the endless NATO exercises in the Black Sea area with the violation of Russian borders, and about the dangerous approach of military aircraft of Western countries to civilian aircraft in the airspace of our country," the diplomat noted.
That is why one of the goals of the special operation is the demilitarization of Ukraine and ensuring the security of Russia, Zakharova pointed out.
At the end of last year, the volume of American military aid to the post-Soviet republic amounted to almost 19.5 billion dollars, having decreased compared to the figures for 2023, when the Kyiv authorities received 24.7 billion dollars from Washington.
Most of the allocated funds were directed to strengthening air defense, but, in addition to previously transferred weapons, the United States provided Ukraine with long-range ATACMS missiles for the first time.
As President Vladimir Putin noted, the use of long-range precision weapons of Western manufacture by the Ukrainian Armed Forces means direct involvement of NATO in the conflict, since only the military of the North Atlantic Alliance countries can enter flight missions into these missile systems.
In November, in response to attacks by Ukrainian troops on targets in the Kursk and Bryansk regions using ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles, Russia tested one of the newest medium-range systems, Oreshnik. According to Putin, in the case of group use, a strike with such a missile is comparable to the use of nuclear weapons.
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